Survive or Thrive?
A five-minute audio blog that can help you
market your company in a brutal economy.

Following up on my earlier blog entry, check out this audio slideshow for some additional thoughts on smart marketing during economic tough times.

I’m always fascinated when I hear about people’s professed views diverging dramatically from their behavior.

Case in point: The recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll in which 80% of respondents said John McCain has the right experience to be president compared to Barack Obama’s 52%. Yet the same poll shows Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain 49% to 40% when it comes to which man the respondents will vote for on Election Day.

How can this be?

I think the inconsistency is based on people’s perception of Barack Obama as a man who, despite his limited national political experience, is open to new ideas and who has the intellectual capacity and curiosity to grapple with them. John McCain, fairly or otherwise, is perceived to be a man with fewer ideas, a smaller circle of advisors, and less curiosity.

It is not my intention to suggest that either of these characterizations is accurate or not. Rather it is to point out that in a confusing, fast changing, digital age, the guy that seems like he is most open to new ideas is the easiest to trust with our nation’s future.

Welcome to the idea economy.

Richard Florida, in his landmark book The Rise of the Creative Class, demonstrated how the agricultural age gave way to the industrial economy, which in turn was surpassed by the service economy. Next came the information age, only to lead to the era of the creative economy, fueled by the talent and energy of the “creative class”—cultural and occupational creatives including software developers, designers, architects, musicians, artists, writers, game developers, etc. These people shape the life experiences of millions of their fellow citizens, create new products and experiences that fuel the economy, and are themselves a target market that municipalities and states seek to attract as engines of economic development.

Well, this election may suggest that we have moved a step beyond the creative economy to the idea economy.

It’s not just being creative that counts. It’s being open to ideas, curious, interested, intellectually engaged. Folks may question Mr. Obama’s experience, but they seem to approve of his ability to grapple with ideas, and surround himself with people smarter than himself. An electorate familar with outsourcing, free-agency and collaborative work groups may tend to believe that Mr. Obama will provide the kind of idea leadership that the country needs right now.

Hey, that sounds like the definition of a good CEO—curious, motivated by ideas and quick to seek out input from others.

In today’s uncertain world, companies whose leaders foster curiosity, reward creativity and are open to feedback are likely to be “elected” by their customers…maybe even get re-elected.

The question that has been on the mind of nearly every business owner and CEO I’ve talked to lately is, “What should we be doing to market our company in this down economy?”

There are two basic options in a situation like this:

Option One: Survive. Hunker down, conserve resources, reduce your marketing spend, and try to ride out the storm.

Option Two: Thrive. Stay visible, communicate endurance, find opportunities, and seize market share from competitors who are hunkering down.

As a short term strategy, Option One has some merit. But it merely extends survival, at best, while doing nothing to fill the pipeline of business for when the storm is past.

Marketing to Thrive
Most entrepreneurs I know—despite serious concern about the present economic situation—expect to be in business a year from now, five years from now, 20 years from now. They at least expect to have a valuable business with a higher stock price or asset value when it comes time to sell and retire.

If a company plans to be in business for the long haul, Option Two, executed smartly, can pay some big dividends. Here are some tactical ways to seize the opportunities inherent in a down market:

Convert Ad Spend to PR: Dollar for dollar, PR typically pays a bigger dividend than advertising. You may not wish to abandon advertising entirely, but a reallocation of marketing dollars may be in order. PR is more than just getting news clips. It should be based on a creative, 360° view of your customer’s world and finding ways to be interesting and visible in it.

Negotiate Ad Contracts Now: Once the election is over, and a slower than usual holiday retail season has passed, print and broadcast media outlets are going to be hungry for advertisers. These media have already been in decline for the last several years. Now may be the best time ever to negotiate—and negotiate hard—for ultra-favorable rates in 2009. Media outlets would rather have a year-long commitment at a lower rate than have to chase down advertisers to get their business month by month.

Keep Customer Service Levels High: Too many companies cut back on customer service when times get tough. This only serves to alienate today’s discerning customers—B2B and consumer—who realize that they can be choosy about who they do business with. So now’s the time to come up with new and better customer service protocols. Hire the best people to interface with your customers. Designate special customer concierges and liaisons. Clients will reward the customer service leader in your industry, because even in hard economic times, people still value good service as much as price.

Increase Frequency of Contact: Using email and direct marketing, stay continually visible with clients, reminding them that your organization is alive and well. Hold a social event that brings people together during hard times to commiserate or share ideas on responding to the crisis. There’s no substitute for frequency in building a brand that can seize market share from competitors.

Adopt or Start a Non-Profit: In hard times, non-profits usually suffer a reduction in donations. Even if the amount your business can commit isn’t huge, find one organization to adopt and support, both financially and in-kind. Publicize the work you are doing with the non-profits you serve. Stay visible with their board members. Their appreciation will translate into referrals and new business.

Maintain Internal Branding: Your employees need to know that your company and brand are strong…that your brand stands for staying power in good times and bad…that your company’s values and mission never waver. This confidence and belief in the brand will translate into a better customer experience. Find ways to reinforce the brand with employee events, visual messaging and news updates about the company’s status.

Gather Testimonials: This will give you a chance to talk to customers and reinforce the good things that your product or service has done for them. Use those testimonials in marketing to your prospects. Hard times make people scrutinize decisions more closely, or even lead to indecision; solid testimonials or endorsements can instill greater confidence in a prospective client, and reduce the perception of risk.

Conduct Some Market Research: Gathering market intelligence lets your business re-take the pulse of your industry and re-calibrate for new realities. You could hire a formal market research partner, even sharing the costs with non-competing companies interested in the same questions. Alternatively, you can conduct your own market research using inexpensive web survey tools. For added PR impact, publish the results (if appropriate) in a white paper or editorial article in your local business or industry trade press.

Co-Market and Co-Brand: Share marketing costs with another organization by engaging in co-marketing and/or co-branding efforts. These efforts usually produce creative and value-added results—while  cutting your marketing spend in half. At a minimum, by opening your Rolodexes to one another, each party gains access to new contact lists. You might even co-market with competitors by running a campaign that lifts the visibility of an entire industry in such a way that all the boats rise.

Introduce a New Product or Service: Find ways to repackage or bundle services in new ways. The mere act of launching something new communicates that your company is forward-looking and optimistic. People want to work with winners poised for the future.

Investing creatively in marketing during tough economic times is a savvy way to keep customer confidence and win new clients. Of course, the tactics outlined here are good ideas all the time, not just in tough economic times. The best ideas are not always the most expensive to implement. Remember, especially at times like these, you can make up in creativity what you lack in marketing budget.

Tanzanian-born multimedia artist and composer Walter Kitundu, age 35, creates hybrid instruments out of turntables and strings. One of his inventive instruments is the Blue Steel String 1200 Phonoharp. It uses a phonograph turntable to pick up vibration.

“Many people for years have been trying to isolate the turntable from vibration, precisely because it’s so good at picking it up,” Kitundu said in a recent interview. “So I turned that on its head. When I pluck the strings of the phonoharp, the vibrations are actually varied into the body of the turntable, and they’re amplified by the cartridge.”

Thus, by amplifying—quite literally—what others perceived as a negative, Kitundu has invented an interesting array of never-before known musical instruments.

Finding inspiration in the Japanese koto and the West African cora, he says that some instruments just come out of his own imagination.

But it’s his process that is so remarkable.

“I build them, and I find out what they sound like after they’re built,” he says. “I’ve blown up a couple of turntables in the process of making new things, but those have always been great learning processes.”

He calls it “trial and terror.”

I think any business owner or CEO can relate to that. Inventing and reinventing a company on the fly. Turning negatives into positives.

But here’s the really cool part of Kitundu’s perspective:

He visits flea markets, finding ways to creatively reuse the pre-owned objects he discovers there.

“I find that if you limit your palette and you limit your tools, you have to think more creatively about how to use them,” he says. “And sometimes that leads to novel solutions.”

If there was ever a time that marketers and business owners need to hear that advice, it’s now. The uncertain economy has people wondering whether to spend or not to spend on marketing. It seems that Kitundu has the right perspective: reduced tools used with more creativity leads to novel solutions.

Creativity is thus the ultimate commodity in any marketplace, but especially crucial in challenging economic times. With breakthrough creativity, it is actually possible to reduce your marketing spend and achieve bigger and better results.